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[Panajev2001a]

The artwork, designed by 83-year-old English painter David Hockney, was unveiled by London Mayor Sadiq Khan. It shows an updated version of the famous London Underground logo which has been purposefully designed to look like it's been drawn using Microsoft Paint.

The brand new Piccadilly Circus station sign, features the name of the famous station with the letter 's' added below the rest of the letters. It is part of a bigger campaign which will see lots of major art projects taking place across the UK capital.

The Mayor of London praised the artwork describing it as "brilliant", but not everyone has had the same reaction.

Lots of people took to social media to criticise the new design and some have even been inspired to recreate their very own signs for other London tube stations in the same style!



Artists other work:

Paintings : Works | David Hockney

Official Works by David Hockney including exhibitions, resources and contact information.

www.hockney.com

OMG, this is awful…

It gives this almost a run for its money… almost:

 

[bitbydeath]

 

[SJRB]

Sadiq Khan is a moron. Literally no one in the entire world would honestly label that "brilliant".

Imagine paying millions of tax pounds for this. Holy shit how are these people not dragged through the streets, I sometimes wonder.

 

[QSD]

It doesnt work like that, mind you. Any dickhead could make this, and does. It's just that they dont know the twats that can grease the palms for it to become 'brilliant work'

So here is the ultimate challenge: why don't you create a fitting new Picadilly Circus sign that everyone here agrees has artistic merit, is a worthy successor to the original, and is also better than the new sign in the OP.

 

[ZehDon]

Feels like an Emperor's New Clothes moment, frankly.

"Yeah... nah, I totally get it. Totally, yep. Yep. I get it; I get it - it's brilliant, really. If you didn't understand, like, art, you'd think 'this is shite', but because I, like, get art, right, I get it - so, yeah, I get it. Love it. Brilliant. Really really really brilliant".

But hey - respect the hustle: bloke got paid a few years salary for about 15 minutes of work.

 

[pr0cs]

Lol Paul is a dweeb

Maybe, but he's not wrong

 

[Ionian]

Don't criticize it so much! It cost 7 million, therefore it is very valuable.

7 million? holy fuck.

Was looking at his other work in the OP , unbelievably bad. Not a single fiber of talent. Atrocious stuff, honestly mind-boggling he has a name.

 

[BaneIsPain]

Just hire me for a quarter of that fund. I’ll do it slightly better.

 

[JimmyRustler]

So here is the ultimate challenge: why don't you create a fitting new Picadilly Circus sign that everyone here agrees has artistic merit, is a worthy successor to the original, and is also better than the new sign in the OP.

He probably has when he was a kid. He just didn‘t get paid thousands of pounds for it.

 

[YCoCg]

Imagine paying millions of tax pounds for this. Holy shit how are these people not dragged through the streets, I sometimes wonder.

Over the past year people have just been conditioned to accept our government wastes taxpayer money *shrugs*

 

[QSD]

He probably has when he was a kid. He just didn‘t get paid thousands of pounds for it.

Aight let's see it!

 

[Dr.Morris79]

So here is the ultimate challenge: why don't you create a fitting new Picadilly Circus sign that everyone here agrees has artistic merit, is a worthy successor to the original, and is also better than the new sign in the OP.

That'll cost you five million, i'm cutting my own throat at that price.

 

[QSD]

That'll cost you five million, i'm cutting my own throat at that price.

Don't cut your own throat man, how will you spend the money?

Other than that, it's just the old sign...

 

[Ionian]

That'll cost you five million, i'm cutting my own throat at that price.

Snazzy and to the point. Has a certain va-va-voom to it. Unapologetically getting in there with the curves and colours!

Offer 10 million if you can provide an NFT.

 

[dr_octagon]

my Interstellar version (we have to catch the train, it's necessary).

 

[The Wheel of Fortune]

 

[jufonuk]

When it comes to using MS paint, I can best David Hockey, where are my millions?

Yeah but can make a bullshit pretentious word salad that contains so many buzzwords but actually says fuck all.

have you got the balls to fool people so they go along with your BS just to seem smart ?

 

[dr_octagon]

Yeah but can make a bullshit pretentious word salad that contains so many buzzwords but actually says fuck all.

have you got the balls to fool people so they go along with your BS just to seem smart ?

all my work is sustainable and ethically created. I'm offsetting my carbon footprint by not eating steak for 2 days.

thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

 

[jufonuk]

all my work is sustainable and ethically created. I'm offsetting my carbon footprint by not eating steak for 2 days.

thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

Add More bullshit. Throw in social issues some vague reference to something else and then use juxtaposition I’m the phrase. Try to make it so that people have to agree with you otherwise they are dumb.

 

[SJRB]

my Interstellar version (we have to catch the train, it's necessary).

You put more thought, time and effort in than the actual fucking "artist".

 

[EverydayBeast]

They ran out of room.

 

[QSD]

logos

Props for the "Mind the Event Horizon" logo, that one's ace and I'd definitely laugh if that one was at the natural history museum subway station (or something like it)

The boy with the sign I don't like quite as much as the one in the OP...

logos

These share with the 2nd logo dr_octagon did that they basically copy the original artist's idea of making a child-like version of the original logo. But that's not an original idea, that just shows you can iterate on another person's original idea. I'd be more curious to see what original concept you'd come up with if the assignment were given to you.

Also, I'm curious what you modern art skeptics make of corporate logo's and their design (and redesign)

Some of these were probably extremely expensive too, but (like the pepsi logo) are barely different (and certainly not visually complex or "artistic").

 

[funkygunther]

Where is the money for this “tourism effort” coming from. Rather than pay whatever they did to this useless artist character they should have run a competition for kids that live in the communities around these tube stations to paint signs and then publish the favourites. Free and actually showcases London, rather than some wanky modern art.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Props for the "Mind the Event Horizon" logo, that one's ace and I'd definitely laugh if that one was at the natural history museum subway station (or something like it)

The boy with the sign I don't like quite as much as the one in the OP...

These share with the 2nd logo dr_octagon did that they basically copy the original artist's idea of making a child-like version of the original logo. But that's not an original idea, that just shows you can iterate on another person's original idea. I'd be more curious to see what original concept you'd come up with if the assignment were given to you.

Also, I'm curious what you modern art skeptics make of corporate logo's and their design (and redesign)

Some of these were probably extremely expensive too, but (like the pepsi logo) are barely different (and certainly not visually complex or "artistic").

It's simply a sign of the times where simpler logos means more sophistication. Seems counterintuitive. But a busy logo 50 years ago meant being complex, edgy, and if the logo is jammed full of art, the company itself must be ultra sophisticated too.

At some point it changed to simpler logos and fonts. Where that now communicates being modern and not being desperate to make gaudy logos.

That old Discovery Kids one is crazy how busy it is. Though it's aimed at kids.

Personally, I like logos that are classy even if busy. I dont even drink Starbucks but that brown logo (which must be so old I've never seen it in person) looks slick. I find modern day simple logos cheap and more about the marketing department too lazy to do anything that requires more effort.

Simpler logos make it easier to do artwork.

 

[QSD]

It's simply a sign of the times where simpler logos means more sophistication. Seems counterintuitive. But a busy logo 50 years ago meant being complex, edgy, and if the logo is jammed full of art, the company itself must be ultra sophisticated too.

At some point it changed to simpler logos and fonts. Where that now communicates being modern and not being desperate to make gaudy logos.

I agree that it's partly just fashion of some sort. But I also think there is more to it. I think the tendency to reduce complexity is also because as our attention spans become more taxed, people actually prefer logos that are visually easy to comprehend. Similar to the tendency towards flat design in software UI

That old Discovery Kids one is crazy how busy it is. Though it's aimed at kids.

Personally, I like logos that are classy even if busy. I dont even drink Starbucks but that brown logo (which must be so old I've never seen it in person) looks slick. I find modern day simple logos cheap and more about the marketing department too lazy to do anything that requires more effort.

Simpler logos make it easier to do artwork.

Mostly I just posted these to give an example that even multi-billion dollar corporations hire "modern artists" of a sort for huge salaries in order to redesign and simplify their visual 'brand'. When so much money is being spent, I'm not sure you can fully attribute the tendency to simplify to lazy marketing departments. Something like the step 1 > step 2 reduction the Starbucks logo, that captures the visual essence while radically reducing the amount of visual information, is actually quite difficult to do and certainly requires skill or craft to produce.

Since we're talking about a london underground station, an excellent example is the London Underground map, which is an obvious reduction from a real map (and thus you could consider it lazy), but is widely considered a landmark in visual design:

 

[AJUMP23]

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I agree that it's partly just fashion of some sort. But I also think there is more to it. I think the tendency to reduce complexity is also because as our attention spans become more taxed, people actually prefer logos that are visually easy to comprehend. Similar to the tendency towards flat design in software UI



Mostly I just posted these to give an example that even multi-billion dollar corporations hire "modern artists" of a sort for huge salaries in order to redesign and simplify their visual 'brand'. When so much money is being spent, I'm not sure you can fully attribute the tendency to simplify to lazy marketing departments. Something like the step 1 > step 2 reduction the Starbucks logo, that captures the visual essence while radically reducing the amount of visual information, is actually quite difficult to do and certainly requires skill or craft to produce.

Since we're talking about a london underground station, an excellent example is the London Underground map, which is an obvious reduction from a real map (and thus you could consider it lazy), but is widely considered a landmark in visual design:

The picture looks nice, or London's subway system ended up spiderwebbing like that so by luck it looks spiffy?

I don't think London engineers are purposely picking stations to build just so it looks nice on a map. And any city with a big subway system can have nice looking maps.

 

[Durien]

That'll cost you five million, i'm cutting my own throat at that price.

Cut me own throat Dibbler! Great artwork but don't eat his pies.

 

[LocalE]

The picture looks nice, or London's subway system ended up spiderwebbing like that so by luck it looks spiffy?

I don't think London engineers are purposely picking stations to build just so it looks nice on a map. And any city with a big subway system can have nice looking maps.

No, he really means that the diagram is a serious piece of design work.

 

[niilokin]

"modern" art is so fucking weird. sometimes it feels like the ugliest pieces of shit make rich people cum money at it.

 

[CherryFalls]

I live in London.

Pity me.

It literally feels like living in a 3rd world country where I am.

 

[llien]

We could argue all day long, but there is no objective way to assess a piece of art.

So it comes down to "I personally like/do not like it".

I personally rather don't.

 

[dr_octagon]

We could argue all day long, but there is no objective way to assess a piece of art.

So it comes down to "I personally like/do not like it".

I personally rather don't.

I disagree about objectivity.

there are certain aspects which are based on geometry, composition, lighting, physical space, colour, material and how the message is conveyed. not just with paintings, objects, installations and sculptures etc.

artistic expression is one thing but good art can be measured. the effort, message, craft, aesthetics should all form part of it.

taxpayers money being wasted doesn't help because government, as mentioned, are full of useless people with no business skills. this is where any artistic endeavour can be replaced with dollar dollar bills and a famous name attached.

the audience should not be ignored. the point funkygunther made about having this open to children and making it into a competition was a good idea.

 

[CertifiedKiwi]

Art is in the eye of the beholder

 

[QSD]

I disagree about objectivity.

there are certain aspects which are based on geometry, composition, lighting, physical space, colour, material and how the message is conveyed. not just with paintings, objects, installations and sculptures etc.

artistic expression is one thing but good art can be measured. the effort, message, craft, aesthetics should all form part of it.

taxpayers money being wasted doesn't help because government, as mentioned, are full of useless people with no business skills. this is where any artistic endeavour can be replaced with dollar dollar bills and a famous name attached.

the audience should not be ignored. the point funkygunther made about having this open to children and making it into a competition was a good idea.

I agree with your point about objectivity. If appreciation of art were truly subjective, there would be (to give a different analogy) no real pop stars, as every band or artist would just have a handful of fans. You have to contend with the phenomenon of quality, as for example also argued in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence.

I don't really get your point about government and lack of business skill. I posted some corporate logo's above, which IMHO illustrates that even people with serious business skills will engage with (and pay huge sums of money for) what at first glance seems to be very reductionist "modern" art.

 

[dr_octagon]

I agree with your point about objectivity. If appreciation of art were truly subjective, there would be (to give a different analogy) no real pop stars, as every band or artist would just have a handful of fans. You have to contend with the phenomenon of quality, as for example also argued in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence.

I don't really get your point about government and lack of business skill. I posted some corporate logo's above, which IMHO illustrates that even people with serious business skills will engage with (and pay huge sums of money for) what at first glance seems to be very reductionist "modern" art.

Government overpay and when it's taxpayers money, value gets ignored and this is across the board (not just art)

 

[QSD]

Government overpay and when it's taxpayers money, value gets ignored and this is across the board (not just art)

Well it's hard to argue against such a general statement, especially since I don't have access to the budgets of the corporations in the image above. I would say that Pepsi probably paid a sum no lower than six figures for that slightly tilted version of their logo. Would you consider that overpaying/ignoring of value?

 

[dr_octagon]

private companies won't be subsided by taxpayer money so they can spend millions on a potato print. i get that's value for them because of branding which is fair.

government have a responsibility to justify the money they spend. taxpayers will see it as a valuable investment or money burned. the trains are red and blue, why is the logo yellow and purple? from a branding perspective, it's stupid.

you can get children to draw ideas, involve community and save money to deliver the same artistic outcome.

 

[QSD]

private companies won't be subsided by taxpayer money so they can spend millions on a potato print. i get that's value for them because of branding which is fair.

government have a responsibility to justify the money they spend. taxpayers will see it as a valuable investment or money burned. the trains are red and blue, why is the logo yellow and purple? from a branding perspective, it's stupid.

you can get children to draw ideas, involve community and save money to deliver the same artistic outcome.

So yeah, by this standard a private company can never overpay, only the government can do that?
I'd say Pepsi could get children to draw ideas, involve the community, save money, and lower prices of their soda! Everyone wins!

 

[dr_octagon]

So yeah, by this standard a private company can never overpay, only the government can do that?
I'd say Pepsi could get children to draw ideas, involve the community, save money, and lower prices of their soda! Everyone wins!

the distinction is the source of funding

there is no minister of carbonated soft drinks or office of sugar water

 

[funkygunther]

So yeah, by this standard a private company can never overpay, only the government can do that?
I'd say Pepsi could get children to draw ideas, involve the community, save money, and lower prices of their soda! Everyone wins!

to me it’s the transferrance of money between public and private that is important

in the case of Pepsi crowdsourcing a logo they save money, any thing they would have given a private individual on a design instead stays theirs because they have got the design for free

in the case of TFL, they are paying a private individual with public money and so must justify why that transfer has happened, because why should public money be spent on something that cannot be justified as a public good

in the case of TFL crowdsourcing their design they would only have to justify the spending of public money to print and display the crowdsourced design

 

[Torrent of Pork]

The entire point of this is to demoralize you, and to break you of your national pride so you're easier to conquer from within.

This fucker's doing more damage with his shitty 'art' than Hitler could with Krupps steel.

 

[RedWhiteBlue]

I feel like if this was done by an actual child that people would at least think it's cute.

Maybe they could have opened this up as a local community competition and given some disadvantaged Londoners the chance to make money by coming up with something.

No way any sensible person thinks this is good.

If this was some April fools joke or something that would make more sense to me.

 

[GymWolf]

A dog smearing his own shit on the ground with his paw would do a better job most probably.

 

[DeliciousDoc]

paypal me your donations.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

 

[GamingKaiju]

Much prefer this one to the one we got. I bet this wouldn’t cost £7mil neither.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Much prefer this one to the one we got. I bet this wouldn’t cost £7mil neither.

Actually it's £8 mil, it'll cost an extra mil for hiring a diversity team to put it up, plus the health and safety meetings before and after, oh then theres the safe spaces we'll need to book

It's a big job.

 

[GamingKaiju]

Actually it's £8 mil, it'll cost an extra mil for hiring a diversity team to put it up, plus the health and safety meetings before and after, oh then theres the safe spaces we'll need to book

It's a big job.

Bargain for Pepe memes. Sod the safe place send them to McDonald’s instead more money for Pepe memes haha

 

[nemiroff]

oio

That's my digital art piece.

My performance art will be to go back later to make an edit and replace it with "()"

I'll sell it all for 6 mill.